President Obama is Not a Big Spender and the De-Personalization of Communications

Another Educational Lesson for the “Legion of the Gullible” (See definition below)

Obama’s “Out-of-Control” Government Spending is Just another G.O.P. Myth


                                

     Mr. Boehner, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Kantor:     Which one of these Presidents qualifies as a "Big Spender"?
                                                

Here’s an item from the Wall Street Journal’s online Market Watch dated May 22, 2012, written by Rex Nutting.  Check out the bar graph at its end.

JL

WASHINGTON (Wall Street Journal Market Watch) May 22, 2012:  Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

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As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.” Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.  Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.  Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Why do people think Obama has spent like a drunken sailor? It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress. 

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Remember, this piece came from the online Market Watch  feature of the Wall Street Journal, a publication not noted for its liberal propensities. 

 How to spot members of the “Legion of the Gullible.”  There are many in your community.  If they meet two or more of these criteria, they may belong to the “Legion.”  More than two, they are likely to be charter members, and probably beyond redemption, no longer being able to distinguish truth from untruth.

1.     Some believe the President was born in Kenya.

2.     Some believe that the President is a closet Marxist, leading the country down the road to Socialism.

3.     Some believe the President is a Muslim.

4.     Some leave their TV sets permanently tuned to Fox News.

5.     Some leave their car radios permanently set on stations broadcasting Limbaugh, Prager, Savage, Beck and other right wing talk show hosts.

6.     Some have weapons which they feel the government is intent on taking away from them, despite the Second Amendment. 

                                       
       Some of  the "Legion of the Gullible." (Their faces are grim because they are "settling" for Mitt Romney as their nominee.  They would have preferred Bachmann, Santorum or Ron Paul.  They may vote Republican this year but for all of the wrong reasons.)
JL

                                                        

The De-Personalization of Communications
Caused by Email                                       



The de-personalization of communications caused by Email and other electronic media is something that should be of concern to all of us. People sometimes will say something in an Email which they might find it difficult to say in face-to-face contact or even over the telephone.  I once worked for a firm in pre-Email days which laid off employees by sending them a impersonal Western Union telegram, avoiding an uncomfortable confrontation in the boss’s office.  I suspect that today, they might be sending the “pink slip” by Email.

Get angry with someone in person and you can see a face flushing or a grimace, and you can react accordingly.   You can look someone in the eye and ask “What did you mean by that?” and expect an answer.  You can’t do that to the verbiage received in an Email, unless you want to respond in an equally impersonal manner.  Replying to an Email with a telephone call raises the intensity level of the communication, which is something one might not want to do. 

                                                   

People say things in an Email they might not say were they not hiding behind a computer.  Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying that “Once something is kissed by printer’s ink, it lives forever.”  The same might also be true of Email, even with the existence of the capability to delete messages.  We should put more thought into what we put into an Email.  Perhaps the most important key one can strike on their keyboard is the “Send Later” key which gives the communicator the opportunity to review their words before transmitting them.

                                     


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In the old days, when people communicated by sending letters to one another, they had the time to review, rewrite and correct their thoughts, and even could wait a while before putting a stamp on a letter and mailing it, giving them the opportunity to change their mind about what they had written.  Such carefully written letters represented the thoughts of the sender far better than the hastily typed thoughts put into an Email by a sometimes angry person.  The “Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy” or the “Collected Letters of C S Lewis” are recognized masterpieces of literature.  I wonder if the “Collected Emails” or the "Collected Twitters" of anybody in our present day world will ever be similarly recognized.  So, in addition to making use of the “Send Later” key, it might be a good idea for us to make a point of not even framing a reply to any email for a day or so, giving us time to better digest the message and to compose an appropriate response, if one is even necessary.

If you disagree, and feel that electronic communications are not impersonal, ask yourself why we still take the trouble of sending hand-written “get well” and “sympathy” cards through the U.S. Postal Service, or go to the expense of printing and mailing elaborate wedding announcements when the invitation or message could be just as effectively transmitted by Email.  Electronic communication, because of its impersonal nature, is not always the best choice as a means of communication.

Jack Lippman                                                       

                                                        
                                                        


                                                          

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